To begin with, in media reportage on the killer’s situation within the Australian far right milieu, much attention has been drawn to three organisations in particular: ‘Antipodean Resistance’ (AR), ‘The Lads Society’ (TLS) and the ‘United Patriots Front’ (UPF). In this context, it’s important to note that, first, while there are critical differences between them, and only AR openly espouses neo-Nazism, all three are the natural outgrowth of the wave of public organising undertaken by the far-right under the umbrella of ‘Reclaim Australia’ (2015–). Secondly, members of all three groups remain politically active and, finally, all can be read as particular expressions of much (much) larger political and social networks, for which the dominant social media and publishing platforms — Facebook, Twitter and YouTube — have provided and will continue to provide a critical part of their organisational framework.

In a recent public statement, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, declared that, using its AI tools, AR, TLS and UPF, along with the ‘National Front New Zealand’, were being removed from Facebook. As noted, the UPF page was deleted in May 2017, AR did not have a public page on Facebook … though The Lads Society page has indeed since been removed from the platform. Since the statement, a handful of other pages and groups have also been removed, including pages for NSW, QLD, SA and WA franchises of the ‘True Blue Crew’ (TBC) and a right-wing fanboy page titled ‘Australian Meditations’. Hundreds of other similar, Australian-based pages and groups of course remain.

The manifesto and writings on the weapons used by Tarrant identify him as a white supremacist. His manifesto opens with an image used by other white supremacists and similar to one that previously appeared on a white supremacist website, Order 15, a group with an international presence which is focused on building a parallel, self-sufficient white society because they believe the societies of most western nations are “irreversibly broken.” The manifesto subtitle includes the words “Towards a new society,” also from the Order 15 website.

Be that as it may, in Australia O15 maintains a presence on Facebook. (But note that, like others, O15 has a tendency to appear, disappear, and then reappear, both under this name and by way of other handles.) O15 is linked to the UPF by way of one of its central members, Kris0 Richardson. Thus before joining the UPF, Kris0 established the ‘United Australian Front’ (UAF) website and Facebook page. In-between noting the UAF’s development (August 2016) into a straightforwardly neo-Nazi project, the Facebook page was closed and re-badged itself as O15, though ostensibly under the control of some of Richardson’s mates. Another right-wing activist associated with O15 in Australia is Newcastle-based Shane Worrall, who was a key organiser for Reclaim Australia in 2015. Currently, Worrall stands accused of ripping off farmers via a fund he established in 2016, and goes to court over the matter in June.

With all that said …

• The list below is intended to be illustrative, not exhaustive;
• Hundreds if not thousands of Facebook pages and groups, Twitter accounts, and YouTube channels are utilised by the far right in Australia. Documenting these is beyond my capabilities and I choose instead to focus upon more stable expressions of same;
• A number of groups and projects are now defunct. This is indicated by use of a strike. I’ve included them for the purposes of historical accuracy but, in the event I publish another guide in the future and assuming that they remain inert, I will remove them;
• New entries are marked with an *;
• The number of people in Australia engaging with far right propaganda has expanded considerably in the intervening period, as has social media’s monopolisation of online communications;
• There’s a good deal more material on all of the groups listed available elsewhere on the blog;
• The far right in Australia must necessarily be understood in terms of its history and a broader political and social context. This post does not attempt to provide that context, but a glimpse is available by way of ‘The Radical Right in Australia’ (Andy Fleming and Aurelien Mondon, The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, Edited by Jens Rydgren, Oxford University Press, 2018):

Compared to its European counterparts, Australia was for the most part spared the rise of powerful extreme right movements, and at times appeared immune to their appeal. However, rather than immunity, the absence of extreme right politics can be explained by the ability and willingness of mainstream politics to readily, openly, and officially absorb such values. This chapter discusses how, for most of the country’s history, Australian mainstream politicians suffocated the extreme right, not merely by borrowing some key ideas of the extreme right, but by negating entirely its ability to appear as an alternative to the power in place. It then turns to the 1990s and explores the rise of Hansonism and its impact on mainstream politics. The final part of the chapter is dedicated to the current state of radical right politics in Australia.

The Institute promotes Holocaust denial and (a very specialised form of) ‘historical revisionism’. Still carrying on like pork chops in April 2019, in May 2016, the Institute was apparently planning on republishing an edition of Mein Kampf with a German group. Among those associated with the Institute is veteran Kiwi agitator Kerry Bolton, who in March of this year avoided going to jail for naming a victim of sexual assault; he’s also been linked to the naughty young boys of the Wellington-based ‘Dominion Movement’, who in the wake of the massacre have gone into semi-hiding.

Note that a new website called Paparoa has recently emerged. It was launched on March 31, 2019, ‘primarily as a response to the horrific terrorist attacks on the Alnoor and Linwood Mosques in Christchurch’. The site is dedicated to monitoring, analysing, and responding to the far right in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Read An Introduction to the Organised Far Right in Aotearoa/NZ.

Anti-Antifa Australia (AAA)

A defunct blog and organising project which passed from Volksfront’s Chris Smith to the UPF’s Jim Perren to nazi crackpot Buddy Rojek. Much of this sort of activity is now being conducted by a range of others, including by way of XYZ (see below).

Antipodean Resistance (AR)

One of the newer kids on the neo-Nazi bloc, AR evolved on tumblr and made a splash in late 2016 when the lads plastered university campuses in homophobic propaganda. Modelled on National Action in the UK and Atomwaffen in the US, and closely associated with other boys on the AltRight in Melbourne, as predicted in December 2016, it did indeed obtain lots of ‘further publicity through staging similarly provocative stunts’ — at last count, something like 80 or more ‘actions’ have been staged since then, though the group’s webshite has been closed and their gab account has been inactive since late last year. See : Who are Antipodean Resistance? (August 2018 Update).

Aryan Nations (AN)

Since the last update, two members of AN in Perth, Wayne Edhouse and Melony Attwood, have been jailed for the murder of Alan Taylor. See : Neo-Nazi Aryan Nations lovers Robert Edhouse and Melony Attwood jailed for murder, Joanna Menagh, ABC, May 8, 2018. Note that the AN HQ was used by the UPF to announce the formation of their stillborn political party, ‘Fortitude’; other members of AN have carried on doing their nazi thing but — sneakily — have re-branded.

Australia First Party (AFP)

AFP is the largest and most well-established of the far-right groups, one dedicated inter alia to the resurrection of a White Australia policy. Founded in 1996 by former Labor MP Graeme Campbell, AFP is a registered political party and in 2016 the AEC also confirmed the Eureka flag as its official logo. Dr James Saleam is the party’s current leader, a position he assumed a few years after being let out of prison for organising a shotgun assault upon the home of Eddie Funde (then the African National Congress representative in Australasia). Previously, Saleam was the leader of neo-Nazi group National Action and in the late 1960s/early 1970s a member of the Australian Nazi Party. The party regularly contests elections, with generally meagre results, and its HQ is in Tempe in Sydney — where it has the largest following. Two AFP members have been elected to local council (Bruce Preece in Adelaide and Maurice Girotto in Penrith – both resigned their memberships following their elections). Saleam and other party members frequently post on Stormfront (the world’s leading neo-Nazi/White supremacist website) and occasionally on Daily Stormer (another US-based neo-Nazi site). In 2015, AFP absorbed the rump of the One Nation Party in WA.

April, 2019 : Saleam stood for the seat of Cootamundra at the 2019 NSW state election. At last count, the good doctor got 1% of the vote, and placed last of the six candidates contesting. Also in the news recently has been AFP member Nathan Sykes, editor-in-chief of the UNA blog (see below). Sykes has been ‘charged with multiple counts of using a carriage service to threaten serious harm, and with using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend’ (see : Right-wing troll to plead not guilty to threatening journalist, Angus Thompson, The Sydney Morning Herald, April 4, 2019). While a registered micro-party which has been active in promoting the white nationalist cause for decades, AFP has been effectively shunted aside by first Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party and now Fraser Anning’s Conservative Nationalists.

Australian Coalition of Nationalists (ACON)

The formation of the Australian Coalition of Nationalists was announced in October 2016, and consisted of the AFP, Australian Protectionist Party and Nationalist Alternative; the Eureka Youth League and the Hellenic Nationalists of Australia were considered ‘associate’ groups. The coalition represented an attempted reconsolidation of White nationalist and national socialist organisations in Australia, but failed to register as much more than a paper tiger, and this failure briefly triggered the inevitable round of recriminations which follow in the wake of such manouevres.

Australian Defence League (ADL)

The ADL formed within the space of a year following the establishment of the English Defence League in 2009. Gaining only a fraction of the support the EDL did, the ADL has undergone numerous splits, fractures and changes in leadership, but of those who’ve nominated themselves its leader Martin Brennan and Ralph Cerminara – along with Nathan Abela – are probably the best-known, along with Shermon Burgess (‘The Great Aussie Patriot’). There have been dozens of Facebook pages created by and for the ADL and it exists as a very loose network of anti-Muslim activists. Sporadic public rallies in Melbourne and Sydney have been poorly-attended but the group has been very active on social media. See : Who Are The Australian Defence League?, New Matilda, January 29, 2014.

As of December 2016, the ADL was a moribund institution, and remains so in April 2019. While Burgess has gone on to embrace neo-Nazism, Flat Earth theory, Odinism, and whichever other crackpottery registers in his fevered bRanes, Cerminara has been in serious trouble with the law, and earlier this year was sentenced to jail for assaulting a neighbour. In good news for Cerminara, he was released on appeal, and — irony of ironies — has apparently successfully applied for legal support from the Aboriginal Legal Service in NSW to aid in his efforts to free himself from the politically-correct courts. (Note that there remains at least one ADL page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pg/AustralianDefenceLeagueOfficialAdlEst2009), one of thousands of similar pages pumping out an endless stream of anti-Muslim propaganda. Oddly, while three admins are based in Australia, two are in the UK and one in the US.)

Australian League of Rights (ALOR)

The Grand Old Man of Australian fascism, the ALOR has been around for a very long time, successfully defending God, Queen & Country from the ravages of International Communism. The group’s weekly newsletter may be read online and is useful for gaining some insight into the ‘Lunar Right’ and the many … er … ‘interesting’ characters which populate its ranks. April 2019 : ALOR remains largely inactive outside of publishing tracts for its diminishing number of followers, but in its heyday did reach a much larger audience. See : The many careers of Twiggy Forrest, Ramon Glazov, The Monthly, July 2013.

Australian Liberty Alliance (ALA)

A creation of the Q Society (see below), the ALA was formally registered with the AEC in July 2015. Modelled on Geert Wilders’ Dutch party — Wilders attended the ALA’s official launch in Perth in October 2015 — it fielded a number of candidates at the 2016 federal election but failed to attract much support, with the anti-Muslim vote largely being attracted to ONP. In September 2016 the ALA announced it would be going into a temporary hiatus.

April 2019 : The ALA has resurfaced on occasion in order to contest elections — most recently at last year’s Victorian state election — but has failed dismally each time. Its star candidate last year was Melbourne-based serial pest Avi Yemini, whose batshit antics have gained him a considerable social media following, a platform alongside Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, and the financial support of Rebel Media in Canada, but little else of note. Otherwise, while the Arcadia Hotel in South Yarra has emerged as a key hub of support and venue for the ALA’s activities, and its base is among older professionals, so Badly has the ALA performed that earlier this year it applied to change its name to ‘Yellow Vest Australia’. Whether or not this re-branding was a serious attempt to crib from the French movement or simply a terrible joke is of course unknown at this stage.

Australian Patriots Defence Movement (APDM)

Still deaded.

Australian Protectionist Party (APP)

The APP formed as a split from AFP in 2007 when one of its Sydney branches – the two most prominent members of which were Nicholas (Hunter) Folkes and Darrin Hodges – elected to defect. It was active for a few years, producing propaganda and holding events, but is now largely moribund. Tasmanian Andrew Phillips is its leader. Hodges has retired from political activity while Folkes split from the APP to form the Party for Freedom (see below). April 2019 : The APP continues to maintain an online presence, but remains politically-moribund.

Australian Settlers Rebellion (ASR)

In essence, one of the Facebook pages of Shermon Burgess and Neil Erikson. April 2019 : Not long after its launch in 2016, ASR became ‘Nationalist Uprising’, but like ASR was chiefly a vehicle for the antics and propaganda of serial pest Erikson, and one of numerous social media platforms he used to publicise his activities. At its peak the page had over 70,000 followers but it was deleted in the wake of the Christchurch massacre. See also : ARN, EARL, NRG, Cooks Convicts, Patriot Blue, Aussie Patriot Army, Ban Islam Party, Generation Identity Australia, Neil Erikson Media, NRG Media, OzConspiracy, Pauline Hanson’s Guardian Angels and United Patriots Front — Originals.

Australians Resistance Network (ARN)

Originally established by Erikson as ‘Generation Identity Australia’, ARN is one of many Facebook pages dedicated to anti-Muslim, anti-leftist and White nationalist propaganda. Almost three-and-a-half years after it was first published, ARN continues to grind out the usual, but like others its current admins are paranoid that it may fall foul of Facebook’s new regime/AI tools, and thus be deleted.

Battalion88

One of dozens of short-lived neo-Nazi groupuscules, now deaded.

Blood & Honour (B&H)

B&H is a neo-Nazi musical network, originally established in England in the late 1980s, and has been operating in Australia for over 25 years. Activities are generally confined to selling neo-Nazi muzak and merch (via 9% Productions) and holding gigs. It functions essentially as an adjunct to the SCHS (see below). April 2019 : Last year, veteran Aussie reich ‘n’ rollers Fortress reformed, recorded a new album, and toured Europe, playing to thousands of neo-Nazis.

Christian Identity (CI)

CI is a tiny sect on the fringes of the far right with a handful of adherents and a minuscule social media presence. One, James Lawrence, popped up at the May 31, 2015 UPF rally and attended subsequent nationalist rallies. According to the ECAJ (Report on Antisemitism in Australia 2016): Christian Identity churches, unlike almost all other denominations of Christianity, place the concepts of race and racial purity high on their priorities. They are expressly anti-Jewish from a medieval Christian theological perspective. There are several Identity type churches. The one with the most prolific and popular website is Bible Believers. In April 2019, advocates of CI presumably continue to eke out an existence, while Lawrence has reportedly been in and out of hospital with various mental health issues.

Christian Separatist

A tiny, bizarr0 White supremacist kvlt. ‘Pastor’ Ken Cratchley is its chief propagandist in Australia. Last year, Cratchley re-emerged as a supporter of The Lads Society (see below) in Sydney.

Citizens Electoral Council (CEC)

The CEC is the name under which the LaRouchite kvlt travels Down Under. Seemingly most active in Melbourne, the group presents a range of entertainingly batshit theories about the world Lyndon LaRouche inhabits. It contested the 2016 Australian federal election and gathered a tiny fraction of votes. In April 2019, the CEC has been robbed of its leader, Lyndon LaRouche, who died in February this year.

Combat 18 (C18)

C18 is another foreign import, having its origins in England in the late 1980s. The group was established in order to protect B&H gigs and other fascist events from disruption by anti-fascists and has a rather bloody history. It’s widely suspected that it was infiltrated by British intelligence on account of the close relationship between C18 and Ulster paramilitaries. In Australia, the ‘brand’ has been adopted by a number of different neo-Nazis including in WA, where C18 was responsible for a poorly-executed attack upon a mosque (see Bradley Trappitt). AFAIK, its only active ‘branch’ currently is in Melbourne under Patrick O’Sullivan. As of December 2016, O’Sullivan seems to have been joined by a handful of others, media has reported on various instances of C18 propaganda appearing around Melbourne and several boneheads in the orbit of C18 have attended various nationalist rallies during the course of 2015–2016. April 2019 : C18 continues to produce and distribute shitty B&W stickers, chiefly in Melbourne but also Sydney and other towns and cities, thereby occasionally generating local media reportage, and boneheads across the country still invoke its name.

*Conservative Nationals (CN)

A newly-formed (March 2019) political party and vehicle for Senator Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning. More on CN at a later date.

Creativity

A bizarre, White supremacist ‘religion’ established in the US some decades ago. It’s undergone numerous, often violent splits: its main exponent in Australia is Colin Campbell/Cailen Cambeul (Adelaide) and Patrick O’Sullivan (Melbourne). Scott Harrison was a ‘Reverend’ in the ‘church’ for many years before joining the Young Liberals. April 2019 : To the best of my knowledge, O’Sullivan has swapped Creativity for Combat 18. As for Campbell/Cambeul he was ‘Pontifex Maximus’ of one wing of the movement until 2016, and in 2017 became a ‘Church Administrator’. (In February 2017, Cambeul got a guernsey in this article about a very Creative lad in Georgia who got caught playing with ricin.)

*The Dingoes

The Dingoes is the name adopted by a smol number of chiefly Sydney-based neo-Nazis in order to produce a podcast called ‘The Convict Report’. The Report has attracted the participation of a wide array of white nationalists, AlRightists and other racist cranks, most notoriously QLD LNP MP George Christensen (whoops) and newly-elected PHONy Senator and ex-ALP Prime Ministerial candidate Mark Latham. The Dingoes were present on Twitter employing the hashtag #DingoTwitter and were reasonably-successful in having their bon mots shared by ABC’s TV show Q&A. Following the Christchurch massacre, The Dingoes have gone a bit quiet (their Facebook page and Twitter account are down and their site is offline), but are otherwise active in the networks which infiltrated the Young Nationals in NSW last year and which are currently taking advantage of Fraser Anning’s considerable social media presence to shitpost on Facebook and Twitter to an audience of tens of thousands.

The example used in this article of the trolling/ 4chan approach, set up in Australia during the US Presidential elections, is a project of a group calling itself TheDingoes. Perched on a service provided by .xyz (a new service platform that hosts many thousands of clients), TheDingoes exemplifies all the various elements of state of the art antisemitic and racist online presence; Buzzfeed reported that the founders of the TheDingoes were intentionally using as wide a range of social media as they could, skirting rules and testing boundaries, in order to normalise racist hate speech. Typically the members remain disguised behind pseudonyms and delight in their anonymity, particularly the opportunity it gives them to ‘bant’ (banter).

Their use of the .xyz demonstrates a close knowledge of Internet trends. The .xyz domain name was released to the general public in mid-2014, as part of a refreshing by ICANN of generic top-level domain names. Google adopted it for its corporate Alphabet site, (abc.xyz), and by June 2016 it was the fourth most registered top level global domain name after.com, .net and .org. The name is managed by a company called Generation XYZ, (http://gen.xyz), which describes itself as ‘a global community inspired by the Internet and its limitless potential… to connect with the world in a whole new way… you can focus on connecting with your audience anywhere in the world’. It represents a further layer of defence for users, from any retributive pursuit by people they harass.

TheDingoes appeared online in 2016, their website registered in January, followed up with a Twitter account in June. A number of the people associated with the group also joined about that time, including one tweeter whose display image contained the anti-immigration slogan ‘Fuck Off, We’re Full’. TheDingoes (once the name of a 1970s Australian music band that left for the US) described itself as ‘#AltRight, but not in the way that violates #Rule1’. Here they refer to Rule1, that is the 4chan /b/ rule 1, ‘Do not talk about /b/’ (which is also rule 2). /b/ is the general posting board for 4 Chan users. They also have ‘88’ on their page, which stands for the initials ‘HH’, a code for ‘Heil Hitler’. As of February 2017, TheDingoes had 1,461 followers online, had posted 3,640 posts, garnered 5,507 likes, and was following 442 other Tweeters; by September 2017 it had grown to 2,146 followers (gaining about 100 followers a month), with 4,615 Tweets and 7,500 likes, though it had abandoned some of its followed friends (down to 420). The site followed a range of micro-nationalist groups, a raft of conservative online commentators and some ‘lulz’ (Laugh Out Loud plural) antisemitic posters, such as one identifying as ‘Goys just want to have fun’, and another as ‘Dachau Blues’, backed by an image of the Auschwitz ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ sign…

Eureka Youth League (EYL)

The EYL is AFP’s putative youth wing and its ideology mirrors that of the AFP. It’s largely inactive, and is currently presided over by (and may only consist of) a right-wing youth from Canberra, Matthew Grant. Grant is a Presbyterian, a White nationalist, an anti-Semite, and spoke at an anti-Muslim rally in Bendigo in October 2015. April 2019 : The EYL continues to exist. Presumably. According to Grant, writing on his personal website: The Eureka Youth League is a nation-wide network of fraternal organisations for young, white men in Australia. We have chapters in Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide and smaller groups around regional New South Wales. My main goal in forming this organisation was to organise the traditionalist, nationalist [C]hristian youth of the country into private and safe social circles in which they can come together for moral, financial and emotional self-improvement.See also : The New Guard.

European Australian Civil Rights League (EARL)

One of dozens of online handles employed by Neil Erikson, in April 2019 EARL remains defunct, though leaves behind a blog (January–April 2013) and Twitter account (last tweet March 1, 2015).

Expel the Parasite

A neo-Nazi website run by 30-something South Australian Brett Light. Light identifies with Christian Identity and there are no prizes for guessing who he believes the ‘parasites’ are. As of April 2019, the site is still up and in its last update (August 2018) Mister Light thrilled to Fraser Anning’s maiden speech to federal parliament, republishing it in full.

Golden Dawn is the Australian branch of the Greek neo-Nazi party. Its chief spokesperson in Australia is Iggy Gavrilidis while other organisers include Christos Cakouros in Adelaide, Christina Tsimtsirids and Sofia Krokos in Melbourne, Elias Vamiakis in Sydney, Peter Poulos in Queensland and Nikolaos Mitsakis in Tasmania. GD has a very small support base, chiefly concentrated in Melbourne and Sydney, and over the last few years has raised funds for its parent body and organised a handful of protests in conjunction with AFP and a smattering of local neo-Nazis and fascists. In December 2015, GD registered in NSW as an incorporated association named Hellenic Nationalists of Australia. GD held its first national conference in Sydney on October 28, 2016 at which over a hundred supporters attended along with Saleam of AFP and a handful of Russian fascists. April 2019 : The trial in Greece of GD as a criminal organisation drags on, while in Australia, GD continues to do its thing. See also : No to Golden Dawn in Melbourne.

Klub Nation/Klub Naziya

A bizarr0 groupuscule based in Sydney. At one point KN attempted to infiltrate and take over the Humanist Society of NSW. It didn’t work, but the nazis had a red-hot go. Presumably, its membership continues to be active but not publicly. April 2019 : KN carries on in various guises, and continues to battle its rivals in Sydney in the AFP, including by way of a legal complaint lodged with the blog UNA (see below).

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

With an obvious indebtedness to the US, in numerous, generally short-lived permutations and combinations, the KKK has been a minor player on the far right for decades. In one form or another, it continues to generate occasional stories and the image of the KKK is regularly invoked in various rural and regional settings, but the organisation itself is largely moribund. April 2019 : The KKK in Australia remains a spectral figure.

*The Lads Society (TLS)

The Lads Society is basically what the UPF (see below) became after it collapsed in 2017. It announced its existence by way of the establishment of a clubhouse/social centre in the Melbourne suburb of Cheltenham in September 2017, which was the site of a joint meeting in January 2018 with members of the Bendigo- and Melton-based TBC (and others) in order to discuss the formation of a vigilante group to tackle African yoof (crimens). In 2018, TLS opened another centre in the Sydney suburb of Ashfield, and apparently has plans to open similar centres in other major cities. Those involved in the TLS include Blair Cottrell, Tom Sewell, James Buckle, Jacob Hersant, Mark McDonald, Stuart von Moger and others who for the time being will remain nameless. Members of TLS were hired by Dave Pellowe to provide security for the 2018 tour by Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern, worked the March for the Babies in Melbourne in October 2018 and also participated in AltLight personality Sydney Watson’s March for Men in August 2018. The antics of some nazi Lads in Brisbane has caused Cottrell some headaches — The (neo-Nazi) Lads Society : Blair Cottrell’s pro-tip : Wear Your Swastikas On The Inside — and there’s no love lost bewteen the Lads and AFP/UNA’s Nathan Sykes (see : Tom Sewell & The Lads Society ~versus~ Nathan Sykes & The Australia First Party).

The creation of TV personality Kim Vuga (Go Back To Where You Come From, SBS), the party achieved registration in October 2016. Vuga attended and spoke at many nationalist rallies in 2015-2016. Contesting the 2016 federal election as a Senate candidate in Queensland, Vuga received 172 votes (0.01%). While blessed with an xclnt name, LAOL is unlikely to challenge ONP for hegemony over the (White) nationalist vote. April 2019 : Vuga and LAOL persists, though why is anybody’s guess. See also : Apology for Labor MP Anne Aly over ‘fake’ Anzac Day claims, Rashida Yosufzai, SBS, April 29, 2017.

Nationalist Alternative (NAlt)

NAlt is a neo-Nazi group which has its origins in anti-Muslim agitation in Melbourne. Its leader is Mark Hootsen, who has travelled to the US in order to receive political training with Stormfront. NAlt was present at the April 4 Reclaim Australia rally in Melbourne. As of December 2016 its activities are largely confined to the keyboard, though the group can boast of having produced figures such as Blair Cottrell and Thomas Sewell of the UPF (see below) and Neil Erikson. April 2019 : NAlt continues to function, albeit with little real impact.

National Democratic Party of Australia (NDPA)

NDPA was launched by UPF activist Blair Cottrell following the April 4 Reclaim Australia rally. Based in Melbourne, the group is tiny and as of December 2016 inactive. April 2019 : The NDPA remains defunct, though Cottrell attempted to manufacture another political vehicle for himself called ‘Fortitude’, which similarly crashed and burned.

Nationalist Republican Guard (NRG)

NRG was EARL rebranded and from the beginning of 2015 worked closely with Reclaim Australia, UPF and Shermon Burgess in order to produce agitprop promoting these groups and individuals. One of dozens of labels Erikson has adopted then dropped.

*The New Guard (NG)

An online organising hub, principally on Facebook, for various white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and other AltRight odds & sods. The NG came to prominence largely by way of the exposure of its role in facilitating an infiltration of the Young Nationals in NSW last year, but remains active behind-the-scenes in a number of other, similar political institutions. The ABC has uncovered a covert plot by Australia’s alt-right movement to join major political parties and influence their policy agendas from within. Background Briefing has witnessed members of the NSW Young Nationals in Sydney attending a secret men’s-only fight club set up by some of the country’s most prominent alt-right nationalists. The program has also gained access to a private Facebook group in which these same people discuss their manifesto, which includes plans to shake up mainstream politics. The group is called The New Guard and its followers are self-described fascists.See : Manifesto reveals alt-right’s plans to go mainstream after ‘infiltration’ of NSW Young Nationals, Alex Mann, Background Briefing (ABC), October 14, 2018 | Neo-Nazi infiltration of the Young Nationals in NSW (October 11, 2018).

New Right (/National Anarchists) (NR)

The New Right emerged in the mid- to late-2000s as a project of Sydney-based fascist Welf Herfurth – Herfurth envisaged NR as the theoretical expression of ‘national anarchism’, a tendency on the far-right with origins in the UK fascist movement. It has produced some propaganda, staged a few publicity stunts, and attracted a handful of neo-Nazis (eg, Bradley Trappitt) and other fascists to its banner but is currently largely inactive. As of December 2016, it remains a dead horse in Australia. April 2019 : A wealthy gadabout, Herfurth continues to criss-cross the globe, network with fellow cranks, and fail to create much enthusiasm for his idiotic syncretism.

One Nation Party (ONP)

See : Pauline Hanson. Initially a deeply attractive formation for the far right, the history of ONP since the late ’90s is long and complex (see : Danny Ben-Moshe, ‘One Nation and the Australian far right’, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol.35, No.3, 2001). Its activists belong to a broader far-right milieu, with some degree of overlap with groups like AFP. The possibility of a reconsolidation of the far right in AFP remains, though is somewhat complicated by Hanson’s periodic political revivals. ONP’s success at the 2016 federal election, when it won four Senate seats — Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts (QLD), Brian Burston (NSW) and Rod Culleton (WA) — has helped revive its fortunes. By the same token, ONP’s success has meant failure for the ALA, and ONP is now the primary expression of politically-organised anti-Muslim sentiment. Finally, despite a deserved reputation for harbouring anti-Semites, ONP was invited to hold a meeting in Caulfield (Melbourne) in December 2016. In the face of local Jewish opposition, the two Senators invited to speak — Pauline Hanson and Malcolm ‘Jew World Order’ Roberts — elected to cancel the circus.

April 2019 : Much has happened to ONP since December 2016. Among other things, of the four Senators bumped into parliament at the 2016 federal election, only Hanson remains in place, with Roberts replaced (November 2017) by Fraser Anning, who then left to join Katter’s Australian Party, left KAP to sit as an independent, and has now formed his own party, the Conservative Nationals. Burston quit the party in June 2018 to join Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, while Culleton was disqualified in February 2017 and replaced by his brother-in-law Peter Georgiou in March 2017. ONP has also won seats (2017–) in state parliaments: Stephen Andrew in the lower house seat of Mirani in QLD, three upper house seats in WA (Robin Scott, Charles Smith & Colin Tincknell) and most recently gained another in NSW, occupied by the the former federal Labor leader Mark Latham (2019–). The success of ONP is generally read as a failure of the Nationals, and presents particular problems for them in their regional and rural heartlands. Apart, perhaps, from running a nominally Muslim woman, Emma Eros, for a seat at the NSW state election (Eros received 2,250 votes or 4.5%), nothing Hanson or ONP does or says dissuades her fanbase from continuing to support her. See also : How To Sell A Massacre, Al Jazeera, March 2019.

Party for Freedom (PFF)

Modelled on Geert Wilders’ Dutch party, PFF is what happened when the Sydney branch of APP decided to hold a public rally in mid-2012 demanding that the Australian government blow up refugee boats. APP disavowed the action and so the Sydney branch of APP decamped to form PFF. It holds regular events in Sydney but has little discernible support outside of it. Is chief and seemingly only spokesperson is Nicholas (Hunter) Folkes, a publicity whore who delights in provocative stunts (see : Cronulla). In April 2016 the PFF travelled to Melbourne to protest outside a halal expo and got a clip around their ears for their troubles; in November 2016 they returned to Melbourne and the suburb of Eltham to protest a refugee housing project. Joined by the SOO and TBC (see below) they were again defeated by a combination of butterflies and unicorns.

In April 2019, the PFF is largely defunct, after Folkes was diagnosed with cancer and decided that his energies would be better directed at staying alive (by inter alia adopting a vegan diet). Between December 2016 and its collapse a year or so later, the PFF distinguished itself by way of organising an anti-antifa demo in Newtown in May 2017, a homophobic rally at the LGBT Holocaust Memorial in Sydney in September 2017 and various other daft stunts. A few weeks ago, Folkes failed to attend a tribunal hearing in Queensland, where it’s alleged that he and the PFF produced propaganda which ‘equated same-sex marriage with child abuse’ (Far-right group accused of hate speech fails to appear at Queensland tribunal, Ben Smee, The Guardian, March 26, 2019). Along with this minor legal difficulty, the PFF also produced a short-lived group called ‘Australian Patriots Uprising’, which was openly neo-Nazi, and organised a tiny rally in Canberra in August 2018 which featured Shermon Burgess as a riveting guest speaker.

Patriotic Youth League (PYL)

The PYL was established in the early 2000s as the yoof wing of AFP. It was not a successful venture and collapsed a few years later to be replaced by the EYL. Andrew Wilson — now attached to Anning — was involved in the PYL.

Patriots Defence League of Australia (PDLA)

An ADL splinter, the PDLA is largely a Facebook creation, with numerous, very small branches across the country which hold semi-regular, private meetings. In its latest incarnation, the PDLA was established as an incorporated association (Australian Defence League) which later changed its name to PDLA. Mark Lenthall, TJ (Torin) O’Brien and Daniel Sutcliffe were its office bearers. Also prominent is John Oliver of Newcastle, who helped organise and spoke at the Reclaim Australia rally in Newcastle on April 4. In November 2016 its Melbourne organiser, Shannon Wallace, deaded. April 2019 : The PDLA continue to maintain a Facebook page, but otherwise would appear to be inactive.

*Proud Boys (Australia)

The Australian franchise of the US-based gang established by Gavin McInnes. PBs rocked up to Anning’s rally in St Kilda in January and to his meeting in Moorabbin last month, attended the tours by Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern and Milo Yiannopoulos in 2017–2018, and are otherwise active (or claim to be) in NSW, QLD, SA and WA. The Boys defend Western Civilisation by not reading and going to the gym. In October 2018, following the arrest of several PBs in New York on assault charges, Facebook decided to remove PB pages from its site, and it’s unclear if the network will recover. Currently, its chief propagandist in Australia is a bloke from Sydney called Nicholas Stone.

Q Society

The Q Society is an anti-Muslim propaganda group which functions as the ideological ballast for the anti-Muslim movement in Australia and largely consists of educated, middle class, bigots. See : International guests Q up for bigotry, Andy Fleming, Overland, March 10, 2014. April 2019 : The Society continues to trundle along, in February 2017 organising a gathering at Victoria University, and otherwise keeping the dream of an Australia cleansed of Muslims alive in the hearts of its elderly supporters. (Also at about the time of the conference, which featured the talents of George Christensen, the Society settled a legal matter with halal certfier Mohamed El-Mouelhy. See : Victory Against Anti-Islam Group: An Interview with Halal Certification Authority Director Mohamed El-Mouelhy, Paul Gregoire, Sydney Criminal Lawyers, March 2, 2017.)

Reclaim Australia (RA)

Largely the brainchild of online activist and (former) ADL member Shermon Burgess (‘The Great Aussie Patriot’), RA was the first anti-Muslim project of its kind to generate anything more than minimal public interest and to successfully mobilise anti-Muslim networks. Its April 4, 2015 rallies attracted several thousand supporters who attended over a dozen rallies across the country — to which the largest and most effective opposition was in Melbourne. Following April 4, RA split and Burgess established the UPF (see below). RA’s next series of anti-Muslim rallies took place on the weekend of July 18/19 while a third and final round of protests organised by RA took place in November 2015. In general terms, RA attracted every Tom, Dick & Harry ‘patriot’, (White) nationalist, racist, fascist, neo-Nazi and xenophobe in the country, but experienced a good deal of internal difficulties, with a rump faction led by John Oliver eventually going on to establish itself as an incorporated association in NSW in January 2016. April 2019 : Like others, RA has experienced various twists and turns, splits and stoopid, but while street mobilisations have ceased since early 2017, it continues to pump out propaganda on Facebook, with former UPF star Scott Moerland being one of the more active voices.

Restore Australia

Another one-man band, Restore Australia was the political vehicle of Queensland-based anti-Muslim activist Mike Holt. Holt/Restore Australia is part of a shifting network of anti-Muslim activists, largely active online on sites like Facebook.

April 2019 : Holt continues being a right-wing blabbermouth, only now wearing a hat called ‘Citizens Initiated Referendums Now’ AKA ‘Foundation for National Renewal’ AKA ‘Advance Australia HQ Pty Ltd’ (2017–). He played a leading role in providing direction to a short-lived Australian version of the Yellow Vests in early 2019 (which was mostly composed of the sorts of folks who attended Reclaim Australia events in 2015 and expressed similar concerns about immigration and the United Nations). He’s also championed the cause of accused terrorist Phil Galea. According to Holt: Phil Galea, Australian patriot, was arrested and accused of being a terrorist in August 2016 after he followed and filmed ANTIFA terrorist thugs at their headquarters; a ‘TrueBlue Observer’ on his website writes (Why Phil Galea was Arrested, October 25, 2018): One of Phil’s aims was to expose these corrupt people and groups. As part of his work he followed ANTIFA members and filmed their meetings at coffee shops and other places around Melbourne. He also recorded every encounter between the Andrew’s Socialist Government and ANTIFA…the same people who constantly turn up at any patriot rally to bash them up as the police look on without arresting them. Holt is batshit, but mostly harmless.

RUAP is the political vehicle of Christian fundamentalist Pastor Danny Nalliah (‘Catch the Fire Ministeries’), a man who is perhaps best known for blaming the Victorian bushfires of 2009 on the state government’s decision to decriminalise abortion. In 2015, RUAP entered into a loose alliance first with RA and then the UPF, the Christian fundamentalists happily joining neo-Nazis on stage to promote hatred of Muslims and refugees. Other than Nalliah, deputy leader and Casey councillor Rosalie Crestani has been very active in promoting bigotry (see : Rosalie Crestani really is deplorable, Kieran’s Review, November 28, 2016). April 2019 : RUAP’s ambitions to establish itself on a national level received a blow when, in January 2017, CTF was stripped of its ‘charity’ status, but Crestani is now deputy mayor for Casey, and the council has been effective in preventing the construction of a mosque in the area (see : Expired permit leaves mosque plans in City of Casey on hold, Rachel Eddie, The New Daily, January 21, 2019).

Soldiers of Odin (SOO)

Founded by Finnish neo-Nazi activist Mika Ranta in late 2015, the Soldiers of Odin formed a branch in Melbourne in early 2016 and the organisation claims support in a number of other cities, though none seem to be especially active. Its President is Jason Moore, a former activist with the PDLA. See also : Who are the Soldiers of Odin?, Kieran’s Review, October 10, 2016. April 2019 : SOO has been an active presence at various patriotik rallies in Melbourne since 2016, including the Anning rally in St Kilda in January this year, but does not seem to have grown much, and is currently simply one of hundreds of Facebook propaganda outlets. (One of its members, Garry Mattsson, got a slap on the wrist after being found guilty of being naughty at the Milo stoopid in December 2017.)

Southern Cross Hammerskins (SCHS)

SCHS is the Australian franchise of neo-Nazi skinhead gang the Hammerskins. It was introduced into Australia 20+ years ago via Scott McGuinness, the lead singer in neo-Nazi band Fortress, which has recently reformed to record a new album and tour Australia and Europe. The Hammerskins last came to world attention when in 2012 one of its members, Wade Michael Page, shot dead six worshippers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. The SCHS organises several social events a year. April 2019 : SCHS keeps on keeping on.

Southern Cross Soldiers (SCS)

A short-lived yoof gang from Melbourne which came to public attention following the police killing of Tyler Cassidy in 2008. The name of the group was re-invoked by Shermon Burgess in 2015 as a supporter of the UPF but as of December 2016 it remains deaded.

Squadron 88 (S88)

S88 was a tiny neo-Nazi group based in Sydney. Its titular head was Ross ‘The Skull’ May, an ageing bonehead and one of Dr Jim Saleam’s closest allies. S88 organised a protest against the construction of a mosque in Penrith and obtained some small media traction via stuffing letterboxes in Sydney with badly-composed anti-Semitic tracts. April 2019 : While S88 remains — alongside their hero Mister Hitler — in the grave, its fuehrer Mark McDonald has re-invented himself as a key organiser with TLS in Sydney.

True Blue Crew (TBC)

The True Blue Crew formed during late 2015 and early 2016, largely in response to anti-Muslim campaigns in Bendigo and Melton. Building upon pre-existing social networks, the TBC made its formal debut in Coburg in May 2016, where it attempted but failed to disrupt an ‘anti-racist’ rally. It organised two further rallies — a flag-waving event in Melbourne in June and an anti-Muslim rally in Melton in August — but most recently has been subject to internal dissent following the conviction of several of its members for ‘domestic violence’ and allegations of abuse and financial impropriety by its leader, Kane Miller. Its most infamous supporter is alleged ‘terrorist’ Phill Galea. See also : Galea intended to bomb “left wing premises” according to police, Kieran’s Review, November 1, 2016. April 2019 : The TBC has remained active in VIC while also recruiting supporters in NSW, QLD, SA and WA. In 2017, it organised a flagwit parade thru Melbourne, and again in 2018; its NSW chapter organised one in Sydney in 2018, and is planning to march again in 2019. Unfortunately for TBC, its pages have been deleted by Facebook, presumably on account of the expressed support given it by the Christchurch killer. In any event, Tom Tanuki provided this pithy summary of TBC lvl boss Kane Miller — who popped up at Anning’s rally in St Kilda in January in the company of some meathead with an SS helmet — back in 2018:

The TBC were formed after a few of their original core crew got into a scrap with some Antifa kids after a 2015 rally. ‘Never again,’ they said! So, the TBC were originally meant to be a patriot answer to black bloc Anteefa contingents.

Their red letter day came in May 2016, when they took part in an organised attempt to have the far-right march through Coburg. Their brief, televised fights with masked lefties were a big popularity boost for them. TBC started charging membership fees – $20 a week, $10 for ‘casual’ members. At one point, they were earning tens of thousands of dollars in just a few months! The money was being managed by TBC ‘President’ Kane Miller’s partner and her sister and all of that money was going to Kane. He was largely spending it as he liked.

Behind closed doors, the ‘President’ was abusing his partner. He even broke her back. He wasn’t the only woman-bashing TBC member, either – and when photographic evidence of another member’s brutal assault on his wife was made public, Kane avoided the increasing media spotlight on TBC by kicking Mark out. Members knew that decision made Kane a bit of a hypocrite, for the abovementioned reasons… So they started leaving the TBC. Kane’s abused partner finally left him too and the money management side of TBC went down the drain. The things she revealed about the abuse meant even more TBC members left the group – and they took their membership fees with them.

Kane went quiet for a long while, feeling defeated. TBC ‘club meetings’ dwindled after a time to little more than 12 unemployed blokes sitting around sucking cones in Kane’s mum’s living room. But the lure of conning working class Aussies out of their hard-earned wages still called to Kane. So TBC returned somewhat with an Australia Day BBQ in St Kilda (a genius idea he came up with after a sesh watching the new Romper Stomper). And he had some stupid fucking idea to wander around parks with a bunch of other losers looking for Sudanese children to fight. A meeting he held at Tom Sewell’s Cheltenham clubhouse was televised, with Channel 7 airing a description of the TBC’s initiative as being ‘like a Neighbourhood Watch’ – and it seemed to the world like the TBC were back!

It was not like a Neighbourhood Watch. It was just more hare-brained, shard-addled fantasy garbage from a man who was desperate to be given more membership fees to enjoy himself with. He says it’s for a ‘clubhouse’ but it isn’t and it never will be. TBC only have about 5-10 people contributing membership fees and they get most of their cash from merch. It’s not enough. Kane just wants to siphon more money out from poor, angry, confused Aussies.

That money won’t do anything but fund the TBC ‘President’ and his lifestyle. This is a man who gets cash-in-hand from his Muslim boss (serious!) and has membership fees go into his mates’ bank account so child support can’t take it. This is a man with convictions for domestic violence (he was also violent to his last ex, who also dumped him), multiple AVO breaches and firearms charges who won’t pay for his own child. Money given to TBC is fleeced money, and it pays for a shit fucking dude.

The UAF was a new player on the far right bloc in July 2015, bringing together a number of the leading organisers of RA and UPF. Its members were present at the RA rally on April 4 and UPF rally on May 31 in Melbourne sporting UAF merch. The establishment of the UAF was largely the responsibility of UPF member Kris0 Richardson; the UAF was eclipsed by the emergence of the UPF when it formed in early- to mid- 2015. Around mid-2016, the UAF Facebook page re-badged itself as ‘Order 15’ and now promotes neo-Nazism and White supremacism. (Richardson states that he is no longer responsible for the page.)

United Patriots Front (UPF)

Established in April/May 2015, the United Patriots Front emerged as a splinter group within the network of anti-Muslim activists known as ‘Reclaim Australia’, bringing together neo-Nazis, fascists, White supremacists and Christian fundamentalists, and conceiving of itself as the Antipodean expression of various European fascist parties and movements. It organised an unsuccessful rally in Richmond on May 31, 2015 to protest socialism which attracted around 50-70 participants. On June 27 2015, the UPF staged a tiny rally outside ABC HQ in Melbourne to protest Islam and the presence of Zaky Mallah on the previous week’s episode of Q&A. Members present were Troy Bloodstone, Warren Broadhead, Blair Cottrell, Neil Erikson, Kris0 Richardson, Chris Shortis, Thomas Sewell and Linden Watson.

Since then, the UPF has staged a number of other media stunts, harassed left-wing activists and institutions, and organised a number of rallies. While the group’s Facebook page has a relatively large number of likes (as of this date, over 83,000), in terms of its mobilising capacity it seems to have peaked in late 2015, when two anti-Muslim rallies in Bendigo in August and October attracted many hundreds of supporters. In February 2016, the UPF embarked upon a tour of Toowoomba (QLD), Orange (NSW) and Bendigo (VIC) in order to recruit members to its political party, ‘Fortitude’. The tour failed to attract sufficient interest and members and the party remains stillborn.

Subject to many ups and downs over the course of its existence, the UPF in Melbourne is now largely reduced to its neo-Nazi leader, Blair Cottrell, his sidekick, Thomas Sewell, and a small number of hangers-on. It also has a presence in Perth, where Dennis Huts and Kevin Coombes (AKA ‘Elijah Jacobson’) constitute its leadership. Formerly prominent UPF members Shermon Burgess, Neil Erikson and Chris Shortis have all left the organisation, Burgess and Erikson currently constituting the ASR with Shortis joining the Australia First Party in mid-2016. Following a daft publicity stunt in Bendigo in late 2015, in September 2017, Cottrell, Erikson and Shortis were found guilty of inciting hatred for Muslims; Cottrell is appealing the conviction, and returns to the County Court in June for a directions hearing. Note that after his Facebook ban, Cottrell transferred his attention to Twitter, but was removed from the site just a few days before the Christchurch massacre, and has now joined all the other nazis on gab.

A blog and Facebook page that has taken on the functions of the defunct AAA and WLT (see below) blog and Facebook pages. Closely-aligned to AFP, it features the writings of AFP member and Daily Stormer writer Nathan Sykes (AKA ‘Hamish Patton’) and a handful of others. April 2019 : While UNA maintains a Facebook page, its wordpress blog was deleted after the massacre and Sykes is on trial for allegedly issuing threats over the intarwebs (he’s also declared that UNA will return in some unspecified form at a later date).

*The Unshackled (TU)

The Unshackled is a propaganda outlet for the AltRight and AltLight which over time has increasingly favoured the former. Its chief editor is Tim Wilms, an advocate of inter alia Right Wing Death Squads. The site has included contributions by and offered a platform to various others, including a number drawn from other groups and projects featured here. Established in September 2016, Wilms described TU as being ‘Australia’s leading battlefront against the regressive left, social justice warriors and political correctness’, though that honour could more justifiably be bestowed upon Sky News and Newscorpse. Operating out of an office in Oakleigh South, as Tasman News Media Pty. Ltd. Wilms is also producing merch (as ‘Upright Market’) and offering commercial services (as ‘Box Media Studios’). His political background is with the reactionary, right-wing Liberal Democrats micro-party. Thus in 2014 Wilms was the Victorian state treasurer for the LDP, a candidate for the party in the race for a Senate seat at the 2013 federal election (he and his running mate Peter Whelan scored a total of 363 votes, or 0.01%), and he campaigned for the seat of Dunkley at the 2016 state election, gaining 1,037 votes (1.16%).

When it was first launched, TU was the joint effort of Wilms and Sydney student Sukith Fernando, but unfortunately Fernando was dropped not long after it was revealed he was a Holocaust denialist. Among those to have recently joined Tim on the site is independent filmmaker, AltRight activist and self-described fascist Richard Wolstencroft. Wolstencroft got into some troubles in 2017 for a homophobic diatribe, and temporarily relinquished his role as fuehrer of his ‘Melbourne Underground Film Festival’ (MUFF) as a result. Happily, the yuppies who love MUFF are a forgiving lot, and he was soon back on top. Note that the principal venue for last year’s MUFF also served as the venue for Anning’s meeting in March, the same one at which #eggboy made his sensational appearance.

Volksfront (VF)

VF is (was) another neo-Nazi skinhead organisation, a US import which was active for several years. Its parent body in the US was declared dissolved after the massacre at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin by VF associate Wade Michael Page. Its principal activist is (was) Chris Smith (AAA) and while active VF worked closely with the NR (Welf Herfurth). As of December 2016, VF remains defunct. April 2019 : VF remains deaded, but one of its members, Andrew Wilson, has re-emerged as a staffer with Senator Anning.

White Pride Coalition of Australia (WPCA)

Chiefly of historical interest, the WPCA was established in the early 2000s as a coalition of neo-Nazi and White supremacist groups. It was eventually disbanded but briefly re-emerged in 2014 as a Facebook page before disappearing again. Prominent members include(d) neo-Nazis Peter Campbell (Sydney) and Jim Perren (Brisbane). Both men were responsible for the ‘Whitelaw Towers’ blog.

Women for Aryan Unity (WAU)

In Australia, WAU is a tiny group very closely associated with the SCHS. Recently, it raised funds to support the Azov battalion in the Ukraine, to which many neo-Nazis and other fascists across Europe have been drawn. See also : The Azov movement and the Christchurch terror attack, Late Night Live (ABC), April 8, 2019.

Whitelaw Towers (WLT)

A long-running blog that shut up shop at the beginning of 2016, shortly after wrognly declaring that this blog was authored by a Monash academic, Rob Sparrow. Its two principal authors were Peter Campbell and Jim Perren, later supplemented by the efforts of Nathan Sykes. Campbell died a few years ago while Perren had a brief association with the UPF and Fortitude, helping them to organise a rally in Toowoomba and even being assigned a role by the UPF in Queensland: Perren has since repudiated the UPF.

Bonus t o u r s p i e l …

Since December 2016, a number of individuals have attempted to profit from resurgent interest in the far right by way of touring some of its leading foreign propagandists, in particular Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’), Stefan Molyneux, Lauren Southern and Nigel Farage (September 2018). Promoters have included QLD businessmen Ben & Dan Spiller (AKA AE Media/Future Now Australia), Dave Pellowe (Axiomatic Events) and Damien Costas (Filthy Gorgeous Productions Pty Ltd/Global Media & Entertainment Pty Ltd/Penthouse Australia). The first and likely most profitable tour was that undertaken by Yiannopoulos in December 2017 (Costas), while the Spiller Bros tried and failed on successive occasions to tour not only Yiannopoulos but McInnes, Yaxley-Lennon and Ann Coulter. Pellowe’s tour by Molyneux & Southern (July 2018) was, like others, not without its upsets, but did at least provide an opportunity for members of The Lads Society to gain employment. As of this date, Costas and his various enterprises are in deep legal and financial trouble, having been declared a bankrupt, pursued by ASIC for various alleged irregularities, and seemingly owing money to almost every other person involved in organising and promoting his cavalcade of racist stoopid. In CBD Melbourne (March 26, 2019), Samantha Hutchinson and Kylar Loussikian write:

Readers by now will be well acquainted with Penthouse publisher Damien Costas’ full dance card. He’s fighting bankruptcy proceedings in two states as well as the investigative gaze of ASIC.

But it’s worth mentioning an affidavit filed by publicist Max Markson’s Obelisk Ventures in the Victorian Supreme Court which contains a creditors list that reads like the production schedule from Sky After Dark.

Markson’s Markson Sparks publicity group is one of the biggest creditors listed, claiming almost $60,000 in unpaid bills.

But it’s not just rabble rousers and right-wingers who have been stiffed of payment.

A swag of Penthouse models, photographers and make-up crew were also left out of pocket, including former Beauty and the Geek star Jordan Finlayson, Maxim model Danie Sommers and specialist nude model Sylph Sia.

Others still owed money in February included Crikey writers Guy Rundle and Ben Hagemann, who was owed almost $3000, while Rundle was waiting on almost $1500.

The conviction last week of Archbishop George Pell on five counts of child sexual abuse of two boys in the 1990s has triggered a number of his supporters. Among those who immediately jumped to his defence are Newscorpse trollumnists Andrew Bolt and Miranda Devine, Catholic academics Frank Brennan and Greg Craven, and Tory politicians Tony Abbott and John HoWARd. According to Bolt (MORE DOUBTS OVER PELL CASE: PAUL KELLY AND GUY RUNDLE, Herald Sun, March 2, 2019):

Surely some of the commentators and activists who have been so savagely celebrating Pell’s fall, and so eager to vilify me for explaining my doubts about the verdict, will pause and ask if something really did go wrong in this case, after all. Can so many people from both sides of the political spectrum really have no reason for doubting – and for risking such hatred to say so?

Er, maybe. But in terms of ‘both sides of the political spectrum’, presumably, this is a reference to Rundle, The Leftist. (Note that Livingstone has written not one but two books on Pell, George Pell: Right from the Start (Duffy & Snellgrove, 2002) — to which Weigel contributed a foreword — and George Pell : Defender of the Faith Down Under (Ignatius Press, 2005).) In Quadrant (The ‘Getting’ of George Pell, February 27, 2019), Geoffrey Luck joins Rundle & Co. to assert that:

The conviction of George Pell demonstrates the power to skew justice of the emotional claptrap surrounding the serious crime of child abuse. Complaints by persons with identity protection appearing decades after supposed events are accepted at face value; the guilt of the accused is presumed, largely as the result of media-induced disgust. The jury’s decision is reduced to a distorted balance of probabilities, with motivation never examined.

Joining Bolt, Devine, Brennan, Craven, Abbott, HoWARd, Kelly, Silvester, Weigel, Wales, Livingstone and even Guy Rundle among the ranks of the #PellDefenders is Bolt’s #BFF Milo Yiannopoulos. According to Yiannopoulos (For whom the Pell tolls, The Spectator Australia, March 2, 2019), Pell’s conviction is testament to nothing other than the power of the progressive Catholic hierarchy … the so-called “lavender mafia” of powerful left-wing gay bishops in Rome. Contra the fact that Pell was found guilty by a jury after police investigated complaints by his victims and then laid charges in July 2017, for Milo: ‘It’s tough to escape the conclusion that Cardinal Pell’s true crime was being a strident doctrinal and political conservative … this is just another case of a conservative being pelted with retaliatory allegations by a sinful, guilty leftist establishment.’

Ho hum.

Yiannopoulos is, of course, notorious for inter aliamaking comments endorsing paedophilia, though this is considered irrelevant by his Australian fanbase. Funnily enough, among his thousands of fanboys is Andrew Bolt, who was hired to act as MC at Yiannopoulos’ speaking engagement in Perth in December 2017 and otherwise — along with a number of other Newscorpse properties — did his bit to promote Yiannopoulos’ tour via numerous positive endorsements on his various media platforms. Further, Yiannopoulos, along with Not-So-Proud Boy Gavin McInnes and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’), is meant to be touring Australia again next week, although it seems as if the tour — again organised by Damien Costas and Penthouse Australia — is in some jeopardy, given that none of the three appear to have been granted visas, and McInnes was denied one last year. Naturally, Bolt understands the possibility of his chum Yiannopoulos being denied a visa as constituting a great crime: unlike, say, Pell’s abuse, or Yiannopoulos’ endorsement of paedophilia (see : MILO CAN’T COME, BUT THIS HATEPREACHER CAN?, Herald Sun, March 1, 2019 & elsewhere).

As for the tour, while Costas has been busy selling tickets for months, it’s not been a straightforward affair. Thus, for the benefit of those of you coming in late …

Yiannopoulos was originally going to return to Australia by way of Queensland businessmen (and crank Mormons) Ben and Dan Spiller. Trading as ‘AE Media’, and with the generous assistance of their Mummy & Daddy, in April 2018 the Spiller Bros announced that they were intending to bring back Milo in May, when he would be joined by Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and serial pest Neil Erikson (and possibly disgraced Sky News presenter Ross Cameron). Almost immediately upon it being announced the tour collapsed in a heap.

Undeterred, in September the Spillers (AKA ‘Future Now Australia’) announced that they’d be touring Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning, Ann Coulter, Yaxley-Lennon and Yiannopoulos in November/December. That, too, collapsed in a heap, with Yaxley-Lennon withdrawing and the tour being promoted as ‘Ann & Milo’. Not long after, the organisers announced that this tour too was cancelled, and ticket-holders would instead be issued tickets to see Gavin McInnes. That tour, organised by Damien Costas (Penthouse Australia), would later add Yaxley-Lennon to the bill. Intended to kick-off in December, the tour was delayed until February 2019, then again until March 2019.

Costas has also had to deal with a number of legal difficulties, most of them seemingly arising from the fact that he’s been screwing over his suppliers.

Australian Penthouse publisher Damien Costas will be bankrupted next month unless the pornographer repays personally secured debts amounting to more than $200,000.

On Wednesday, the Federal Circuit Court gave Costas a full calendar month (until March 20) to repay his debts before a bankruptcy petition filed in September 2018 by printers TMA Australia will be finalised.

The petition has since been joined by Southern Colour (Vic) Pty Ltd. and was recently supported by Le Montage — the Sydney restaurant venue where a speaking event in December 2017 featuring the notorious political troll Milo Yiannopoulos sparked protests and violent street clashes requiring heavy police intervention. Costas subsequently refused to pay Victoria Police $50,000 in attendance fees for the Melbourne leg of the same tour.

Costas’ solicitor Daniel Riedstra sought adjournment of the bankruptcy decision until March 13, and argued that his client would be solvent thanks to a loan of $750,000 (expected to clear in late February) as outlined in an affidavit given by Costas on February 18. Crikey sought a copy of this affidavit from Costas’ lawyer but did not hear back by deadline.

“If we’re back on the 13th and things haven’t gone to plan, we’ll be in a very difficult position,” Reidstra told the court, after explaining that bankrupting Costas would have negative flow-on effects to his various companies and employees.

Of the promised refinancing deal, Crikey understands Costas’ affidavit earmarked $400,000 for the development of a restaurant (to be named “Guccione’s” in honour of the founder of Penthouse magazine, Bob Guccione), which will be built in the ground floor of the Darlinghurst offices where Australian Penthouse is published, despite resistance from locals who petitioned the local council to refuse the development approval for a licenced venue.

Costas’ debts include $175,000 for printing services, which he personally secured with applicant and first creditor TMA Australia, according to the company’s managing director, Anthony Karam.

“He signed a personal guarantee when he applied for credit with our organisation. Penthouse went into administration, and we then proceeded to pursue the debt from him personally,” Karam explained to Crikey.

“But the day before the court hearing he showed up and agreed to make full restitution, full payment, with interest, costs, and suchlike.

“He said he needed a payment plan, which we provided him with … to prevent further trouble. I mean, obviously sometimes you try to help people; you don’t want to be cruel, so we gave him a payment plan over three months. After that he just didn’t make the payment threshold, so we moved to a summary judgement to bankrupt him.”

It’s been a busy week for Costas, who appeared at the Downing Centre on Monday to sue Le Montage for a security bond worth $30,000, in the case of Filthy Gorgeous Productions Pty Ltd v Le Montage Pty Ltd.

The counsel for Filthy Gorgeous Productions Pty Ltd, Charles Waterstreet did not surface to support his client, who was alone as he informed the court of learning only hours earlier that the infamous defence lawyer had double-booked his morning, and was busy elsewhere conducting “a very important criminal cross-examination” according to a message given to the court.

In evidence at an earlier hearing, Costas said it was a “chaotic scene” when he arrived at the venue for the Yiannopoulos event in December 2017, and that he did not read the contract presented to him on a clipboard by venue manager Dominic Hannah, and as such could not have been aware that this “second” contract contained a new clause, introduced because of Hannah’s apprehension of a growing level of risk involved with hosting the highly controversial event. The clause stipulated that a $30,000 security deposit for potential damages was only refundable “at our discretion”.

Magistrate Megan Greenwood was not satisfied with the plaintiff’s claim of ignorance, exclaiming: “One of these contracts has five paragraphs, and the other has six; they do not even share a common paragraph.”

Instead, Greenwood accepted evidence given by Hannah that he witnessed Costas “run his pen over the document before signing”.

The court found in favour of Le Montage and awarded costs against Costas.

Outside the Downing Centre, Costas had little time to talk as he made a beeline for his next engagement — “a conference with my lawyer for about six hours” — but he did state for the record: “We will be appealing the decision.”

And if that’s not enough litigation for the strongest of entrepreneurial stomachs, the ever-unflappable Costas is also engaged in a legal battle with the Department of Home Affairs, over a decision to deny his visa application for political agitator Gavin McInnes — the estranged founder of VICE magazine who has publicly disavowed his association with an alt-right men’s group of his own conception, “The Proud Boys”. McInnes was booked to speak with anti-Muslim activist Tommy Robinson in a national speaking tour dubbed “The Deplorables”, scheduled for December last year and cancelled only days before ticketholders expected to hear their favourite firebrands speak.

Directions for the bankruptcy petition will be filed on March 15, with the final judgment to be handed down at 11am on Wednesday March 20.

Disclosure: Ben Hagemann is a freelance journalist previously published in Australian Penthouse. He is still owed around $2300 for writing and photography work for the publication.

In addition to apologias from Bolt and Yiannopoulos, David Hiscox‘s AltRight website XYZ has published an article by Adam Piggott (George Pell and the Australian assault on Christianity, February 27, 2019) which argues that the conviction was a product of a leftist conspiracy (part of a larger war upon Christianity itself), and on that basis should be disregarded: If they can get Pell convicted and jailed on such ridiculous charges then they can get anyone … George Pell was the number three man in the Vatican and a direct threat to the current Pope and his socialist agenda. The charges of pedophilia are beyond ludicrous if one takes the trouble to read the details of the trial. This has been a political and cultural assassination.

While XYZ is apparently happy to defend convicted paedophiles (and therefore Christianity‽), one thing it’s not happy with is The Jew. The attitude of two of its principal contributors, David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’) and Ryan Fletcher, are summarised below:

• ‘Tiny’ Avi Yemini is almost certainly Yaxley-Lennon’s loudest fanboy in Australia, the antipodean PayPaltriot having secured sponsorship from US and other radical right-wing networks in order to fly to London and join his hero on-stage at various recent rallies. A candidate for the ‘Australian Liberty Alliance’ (ALA) at last year’s Victorian state election, Yeminem and his running-mate Kaylah Jones between them scored 2,075 votes or 0.48%. It’s unlikely that Tiny will be running for the ALA again, however, as the party has applied to re-brand itself as ‘Yellow Vest Australia’.

APPENDIX

Perhaps the best response to Bolt’s proclamation that Pell is innocent comes from Clare Linane:

An Open Response to Andrew Bolt.

Dear Mr Bolt,

My name is Clare Linane. As you know, I am a Ballarat local who has been living with the aftermath of child sexual abuse for many years. My husband, Peter Blenkiron, is a survivor of clergy abuse at 11 years old. You met him whilst in Rome three years ago.

I am compelled to write to you after you expressed your opinion that George Pell has been falsely convicted (27 & 28 Feb, Herald Sun).

You are entitled to your opinion.

What concerns me, however, is your statement that your opinion is based on “overwhelming evidence”. I believe this is misleading, irresponsible and ignorant. Your lack of genuine insight into the issue of sexual child abuse makes a mockery of survivors and all they have endured.

The “overwhelming evidence” you mention includes some of the following points (*), which I would like to respond to in an attempt to help educate you about this issue:

* “One of the boys, now dead, denied he’d been abused”

To provide context for readers, when the mother of the now deceased victim asked him, more than once, if he had been sexually assaulted – he denied it.

Among survivors of clergy (and non-clergy) childhood sexual abuse, it is common for them to deny the abuse occurred. As vulnerable children, they are incredibly embarrassed, confused, and ashamed. They do not understand what has happened to them, and their shame is magnified by the revered status of their abuser. According to the rigorous Report for the Royal Commission into The Impact of Delayed Reporting on the Prosecution and Outcomes of Child Sexual Abuse Cases [PDF]: “children have also been found to be less likely to disclose and more likely to delay if the perpetrator is a parent or parent figure, or a person in a position of trust and authority”

I asked my own husband about this. Although Brother Edward Dowlan had molested and raped him in 1974, when his parents asked him in 1975 if anything had happened to him, his response was to vehemently deny it. He states, “You deny it because you don’t want them to feel guilty. You don’t want them to carry the guilt of having sent you to this wonderful school, within their wonderful Church … only for you to be abused. So you just deny it, to protect them”.

The piece of important evidence you do fail to point out, is that the deceased victim began using heroin at 14 years of age, after enduring the abuse at 13. He abandoned a scholarship at St Kevins, spiraled into drug abuse, and died of a heroin overdose at 30.

This pathway is sadly all too common for sexual abuse victims.

* “The other (alleged victim) whose identity and testimony remain secret, didn’t speak of it for many years”

According to the same report, “Boys and adolescent males are less likely than their female counterparts to disclose child sexual abuse at the time of the abuse. When they do disclose, they take longer to do so … For example … in a 2008 study … for nearly half the men (45 per cent), it took at least 20 years for them to discuss their abuse”.

Additionally, The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse Final Report (2017) found that the average time it took for men to disclose was 25.7 years. The surviving choirboy disclosed 19 years after his abuse – earlier than average. The other choirboy died 18 years after his abuse, so was also well inside the average.

Given this evidence, the fact that one of the complainants didn’t speak of his abuse for many years is, it would seem, indicative of a genuine abuse survivor; not a reason to doubt, as you imply.

* “It allegedly happened in the sacristy, normally a very busy room”

You state in your article that you are not a Catholic. I am curious to know why you believe the sacristy is normally a very busy room?

I was raised a Catholic, and have asked my extensive network of Catholic friends and family about the sacristy. I’m yet to find one who tells me the sacristy was, or is, ‘normally’ very busy. The adjectives used have included “quiet … weird … uncomfortable … scary … silent … solemn”.

* “where Pell would have known people were almost certain to walk in”

The prospect of discovery did not deter clergy abusers. Children were raped with their parents in the next room. In St Alipius, Ballarat, one child I know of was physically carried away from the playground by Ridsdale and Best, screaming for his life, in front of the other children. At St Patricks College, boys were physically punished at the back of the classroom then molested while the rest of the class faced forward.

To use your words, at any stage all of these abusers would have known “people were almost certain to walk in”. And yet they proceeded. Their revered status as ‘next to God’, and their knowledge that the organisation for which they worked was not about to hold them accountable, meant the risk of discovery was not a deterrent.

* “There is no history or pattern of similar abuse by Pell, unlike with real Church pedophiles such as Gerard Ridsdale”

This point is totally irrelevant to Pell’s guilt or otherwise.

Sexual abuse of children is a crime. You don’t have to do it to (at least) 65 children like Ridsdale; just the once.

Furthermore, it is incorrect. There is a pattern in the allegations about Pell. The fifth count relates to Pell pushing one of the choirboys and grabbing his genitals. The Southwell inquiry in 2002 saw a complainant making an allegation of Pell “getting a good handful” of his genitals in the water at Phillip Island. In that internal Church Inquiry Justice Southwell found that he believed both the complainant and Pell. Similar claims were made by the Eureka Pool complainants, one of whom died, another of whom was to be the complainant in the so-called “swimming pool trial”. That trial was dropped because the evidence of another complainant was ruled inadmissible. The judge did NOT rule out the evidence of the complainant who made the grabbing allegations.

* ”the man I know seems not just incapable of such abuse, but so intelligent and cautious that he would never risk his brilliant career or good name on such a mad assault in such a public place”

I’ve never met George Pell so I cannot give a personal opinion of what he is capable of. Even if I could, it would be totally irrelevant to his likely guilt or innocence and would most certainly not be ‘overwhelming evidence’.

Pedophiles can be otherwise lovely, intelligent, charismatic people. We know from history they include extremely successful politicians, celebrities, judges, teachers, priests … they are from all walks of life and run the whole gamut from stupid to brilliant, charming to repulsive.

* “Maybe they misremembered. Maybe they had the wrong guy”

Please spend some time listening to survivors recount their experiences. You’ll notice that whilst they might be blurry with exact dates and times, the details of the perpetrator they sadly cannot get out of their head. My husband struggles to wear aftershave because Dowlan wore it whilst he abused him. He remembers looking at the shaving nicks on his abuser’s neck as the molestation took place, and the scent of what came to be, to him, the sickening smell of cologne. Another survivor I know gets physically ill when someone smokes Alpine cigarettes around him, because one of his abusers smoked them.

Furthermore, these boys were 13, not 3. Their brain development at that age makes them well and truly capable of facial recognition. George Pell has always had a very distinctive physical presence and had been Archbishop for several months at the time. He was extremely well-known, not just in the cathedral but also in the media and society more generally. The victim in this case is unlikely to have mixed Pell up with another 6 foot 4 archbishop.

* “I would, and did, read the transcripts of the trial”

No Andrew, you may have read a partial transcript. The full transcript is not available to you or any of us. Only the survivor, the police, the lawyers, the judge, the jury and Pell have heard all the evidence. So please stop implying that you know all the facts: you do not, and nor do I.

* “Could this attack have happened when not a single witness corroborated a single one of the accuser’s’ claims?”

Yes, it could. I am yet to meet a survivor who had a witness to the crime committed against them. And yet these crimes occurred.

To conclude, Andrew, I reiterate that you are certainly entitled to your opinion. But please don’t make the irresponsible claim that it is based on “overwhelming evidence”.

This week, I’ve been asked my opinion many, many times. My response?

“Any opinion I have is irrelevant and ill-informed, because I am not privy to all the facts of the case.”

How about everyone stops trying to convince people of Pell’s innocence or guilt; it is not the most important issue here.

We have hundreds, potentially thousands of survivors throughout Australia who have not yet come forward. And when the likes of yourself, and other commentators, use your public profile to cast doubt over the outcome of a trial, you make these people even less likely to come forward and get the assistance they so desperately need.

If you want to support Pell, go and visit him in jail. Help fund his appeal. Take Miranda Devine with you.

In the meantime, here in Ballarat we are going to continue to try to deal with the fact that our suicide rate among males is twice that of Melbourne and 65 percent greater than the Victorian average.

We are going to keep helping women, children, mothers, fathers, and siblings pick up the pieces as their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers prematurely end their lives.

We are going to keep lobbying for the redress scheme that the Royal Commission recommended, so that our survivors get the practical and emotional assistance they need.

We are going to keep trying to figure out how to reverse what has now become a cultural problem whereby males in our community resort to suicide instead of seeking help.

Honestly, the fact that our most senior Catholic has been jailed is the least of our worries right now.

Troll Hunting by Australian journalist Ginger Gorman is a new book which examines the world of online hate and its human fallout. Along with interviews with a small number of trolls and general reflections upon this hateful world, Gorman’s book includes a number of case studies of trolling, some of which are relatively well-known while others not: all make for disturbing reading. While it’s of general relevance, many of the characters and events which populate this world would be especially familiar to (Australian) readers, or at least those who take an interest in such matters: on the one hand, ‘GamerGate’, convicted terrorist Joshua Goldberg, Andrew Auernheimer (AKA ‘weev’) and GNAA; on the other hand, those subject to what Gorman calls ‘predator trolling’, including writer Van Badham and lawyers Josh Bornstein and Mariam Veiszadeh (among others). Gorman’s book is well-written and engaging, and weaves together the author’s own experience of being ‘trolled’ with those of others, along with some examples of ‘troll hunting’ and ‘troll hunters’, the latter category including journalist and lawyer Luke McMahon. As well as being of general interest, the text is of particular interest to me because of the ways in which the ‘world of online hate’ has been ‘weaponized’ by elements of the far right, a theme explored in more detail in the anthology Cyber Racism and Community Resilience: Strategies for Combating Online Race Hate (Palgrave, 2017). At a little over 250 pages long, the text includes endnotes, which are useful, but — rather annoyingly — no index.

Gorman’s book is divided into three parts: ‘Trolls’, ‘Targets’ and ‘Troll hunting’. The first part examines the evolution of online trolling, the emergence of ‘predator trolls’ in particular — which Gorman defines (p.18) as those who set out to do real-life harm — and details the author’s lengthy conversations and interactions with several of its enthusiastic practitioners. In the second part, Gorman provides case studies of predator trolling and investigates the ways in which law enforcement has responded, or more precisely failed to respond, to these activities. Gorman also explores how social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have dealt with trolling and cyberhate generally — which is argued to be less-than-adequate. The third and final part of the book explores how some trolls, including Goldberg, came unstuck. Throughout the text, Gorman reflects upon her journey into this ‘world of online hate’, and how her interactions with the creatures which inhabit it change her understanding of them, their world, and its relationship to broader social and technological trends, especially racism and misogyny and the central place of social media in everyday life.

‘Trolling’ IRL

While the second part reveals varying degrees of incompetency and indifference on the part of tech companies, after documenting the systemic failure of law enforcement to address cyberbullying, Gorman does detect a more hopeful sign (pp.119–120):

Some stories are emerging of more appropriate, and effective, responses to cyberbullying complaints. Take comedian and writer Catherine Deveny. After making controversial comments on Twitter and Facebook about Anzac Day in 2018 — describing it as ‘Bogan Halloween’ and a ‘fetishisation of war and violence’ — she was doxed multiple times. Her home address was posted all over the internet and she received an avalanche of credible rape and death threats. She was the focus of several facebook hate groups. One night, five men in a ute turned up to her house. One of them knocked on her door and videoed himself doing it.

Within forty-eight hours of Deveny’s original comments being posted — and the resultant blow-up of public vitriol — Victorian counter-terrorism police reached out to her. They got her statement and started investigating. Police patrolled outside her house and work events. An investigator from the Office of the Federal eSafety Commissioner also got in touch. In contrast to many who’d gone before her, Deveny received significant and appropriate support. After hearing so many dire stories, it’s great to hear one like this. Wouldn’t it be amazing if all predator-trolling victims could rely on getting this kind of assistance?

LOL.

For what it’s worth, I remember when this incident took place, and at the time made brief reference to it on the blog. In which context, a few things. First, those responsible for paying Deveny a nocturnal visit included right-wing activists Julian de Ross (AKA ‘Hugh Pearson’), Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic and Ricky Turner. Secondly, whatever became of the intervention by Victorian counter-terrorism police and the Office of the Federal eSafety Commissioner, the boys carried on as before. Thus one month later, members of the same crew — on this occasion consisting of Paul Exley and Danny Peanna/Parkinson from Sydney, together with the Melbourne-based Grgurovic, Logan Spalding, and their ringleader Neil Erikson — filmed themselves disrupting a church service in Gosford; in June, Erikson, Turner and several others paid another nocturnal visit to a private address, on this occasion that of rival right-wing entrepreneur Dave Pellowe. While it’s unclear if those responsible for attending Deveny’s and Pellowe’s address faced any legal repercussions (it seems not), for his part in the disruption of the church service Erikson at least was later charged under an obscure law making it an offence to ‘obstruct a member of the clergy in the discharge of his or her duties’.

It’s possible, I suppose, to characterise this behaviour as ‘IRL trolling’ — but there’s certainly other interpretations. One critical difference is that, while it may be performed for teh lulz, unlike almost all of the examples of ‘trolling’ Gorman provides in her book, such actions are not really all that anonymous. In fact, while there’s occasionally some effort made to disguise the identities of those responsible, for the most part it’s very public — and by public I mean ‘filmed and then published by/on Facebook’. When de Ross, Grgurovic, Turner & Co. visited Deveny’s home; Exley, Peanna, Grgurovic, Spalding and Erikson disrupted a church service; and Erikson, Turner & Co. visited Pellowe’s home; these actions were undertaken precisely in order to be documented and distributed via Facebook. So too, the numerous other occasions upon which Erikson in particular has undertaken the role of a serial pest, from disrupting councilmeetings and various left and ‘multicultural’ events to stalking and abusing various public figures he happens to dislike. (Note that Grgurovic is due in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on February 26 over assault charges; Erikson, along with his kameraden Ricky Turner and Richard Whelan, have a date on May 13 over similar.)

All of these acts have been performed publicly and for the benefit of his Facebook audience, the corporation having granted Erikson permission to do so for at least the last four years. Thus, it was only in the space of the last few days that Facebook, for unknown reasons, banned a number of Erikson’s accounts. (It’s possible that the pest may have come unstuck upon announcing the re-launch of the ‘United Patriots Front’ by creating an event page for a February 16 rally at Federation Square — the UPF collapsed after Facebook banned its page in May 2017.) Still, there are hundreds if not thousands of very similar pages on the site, and it remains the critical tool for far-right organising in Australia and elsewhere. (See, for example, Fraser Anning’s Neo-Nazi connections (The White Rose Society, January 11, 2019) and Facebook Fueled Anti-Refugee Attacks in Germany, New Research Suggests (Amanda Taub and Max Fisher, The New York Times, August 21, 2018) for two among innumerable other instances.)

More broadly, while Gorman makes fairly short work of the corporate pablum spewed by Facebook and Twitter concerning their commitment to combating trolling and ‘hate speech’, if Facebook in particular is understood as being a massive private data-collection agency — one which derives a substantial proportion of its profits from selling this information to advertisers (and whoever else can pay for it) — it’s possible to cut through this nonsense fairly easily. Further, like corporations generally, Facebook is able to use the enormous financial and political power at its disposal to ensure the forms of regulation which might inhibit its continued growth and profitability are kept at bay. And while YouTube/Google doesn’t feature in Gorman’s account, its role in promoting racist and fascist propaganda, along with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, rivals that of Facebook, and has long been understood as a key node in the distribution and promotion of race-hate and other forms of hate speech (see, for example, ‘Fiction is outperforming reality’: how YouTube’s algorithm distorts truth, Paul Lewis, The Guardian, February 2, 2018 and ‘Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube’, Rebecca Lewis, Data & Society, September 9, 2018).

In any case, to return to Goldberg and Veiszadeh (pp.218–219):

Towards the end of 2014, [Veiszadeh] publicly voiced her outrage that a Woolworths supermarket in Cairns was selling singlets printed with the Australian flag alongside the tagline,’If you don’t love it, LEAVE’.

Three months after her tweet, the far right anti-Islam group The Australian Defence League posted her tweet to their Facebook page. From there, it was picked up by the alt-right Daily Stormer website. Chillingly, The Daily Stormer post about Veiszadeh, written under the byline Michael Slay, demanded of its thousands of followers: ‘Stormer Troll Army … assemble!’ ‘We need to flood this towelhead subhuman vermin with as much racial and religious abuse as we possibly can,” the spite-filled post reads …’

(Note that a few weeks ago the former ‘President’ of the ADL, Ralph Cerminara, was found ‘guilty of two counts of intimidation and one count of common assault’ after attacking his neighbour in Sydney.)

In addition to being attacked on The Daily Stormer, Veiszadeh’s tweet also triggered a Queensland woman, Jay-Leighsha Bauman, to send Veiszadeh messages calling her a “whore”, a “rag-head” and [telling] her to return to her own “sand dune country” — Bauman was later sentenced to 180 hours of community service for the crime. A few months later, an Ordinary Mum™ and Reclaim Australia supporter was charged with threatening to slit Veiszadeh’s throat. On these and other occasions, it seems the chief fault of those charged was not bothering to anonymise their threats; the fact that Bauman’s threats were reported on by both the BBC and CNN may also have prompted authorities to take a closer look. That said:

Later in 2015, Luke McMahon and Elise Potaka reported in Fairfax newspapers that Michael Slay turned out to be not one person, but two. One of those two men was Joshua Goldberg, whose main trolling preoccupation was preserving freedom of speech. As the troll hunter explained earlier, this was how he ended up choosing targets such as Josh Bornstein.

Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes

The ‘other’ Michael Slay was of course Jewish neo-Nazi and toy-doll enthusiast Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes, who was exposed by McMahon in April 2017. Like Goldberg, Sykes contributed scores of articles to The Daily Stormer, inter alia attacking Veiszadeh along with Badham, Bornstein, Dr Tim Soutphommasane and yours truly. Currently, Sykes is the chief writer for the ‘United Nationalists of Australia’ blog, the online shitsheet of the ‘Australia First Party’. In that capacity, Sykes attacks the various enemies of the AFP on the left as well as the right. Sometimes, this creates legal difficulties. Hence, after publishing an article in June 2017 by party leader Dr Jim Saleam which detailed alleged crimes committed by members of rival fascist groupuscule ‘Klub Nation’, in May 2018 legal action against Saleam and the blog was apparently taken by various persons associated with KN. (Member of this radical right-wing network are also implicated in an attempt to infiltrate the Young Nationals in NSW last year.) Beyond this, members of the neo-Nazi ‘Lads Society’ and, more recently, a man called Michael Freshwater, have also been attacked by Sykes on the UNA blog. While Sykes was dismissed by ex-UPF and Lads Society organiser Tom Sewell as a ‘divisive little Jew’, Freshwater, it’s alleged, has been part of a conspiracy to undermine AFP, embracing elements of the Liberal Party as well as neo-Nazis like Mark McDonald, the leader of the Lads Society in Sydney and former leader of neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Squadron 88’.

Notes

• Joshua Goldberg (as ‘Moon Metropolis’) published a statement on Medium on December 28, 2018 which provides a defence of sorts to his actions: ‘It was always my intention to infiltrate online jihadist spheres so that I could eventually become either a journalist, an FBI agent, or both.’ The statement also refers to … when I got Milo Yiannopoulos to publish that “expose” on Shaun King, I did it purely to see the shitstorm that I knew it would create, not because I actually care in the least about anything involving either Shaun King or Milo Yiannopoulos (both of those people are complete and utter clowns as far as I’m concerned). The article, ‘Did Black Lives Matter Organizer Shaun King Mislead Oprah Winfrey By Pretending To Be Biracial?’ (Breitbart, August 19, 2015), is dissected in this blogpost on Internet Famous Angry Men. Yiannopoulos is of course a very well-known troll who for several years was able to translate his trolling activities into sponsorship by wealthy right-wing reactionaries and sought to acquire more filthy lucre by conducting (semi-)lucrative tours. In fact, Yiannopoulos, along with Gavin McInnes and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, are supposedly being brought to Australia by Penthouse Australia publisher Damien Costas next month (March 9–14) for a speaking tour. For his part, Costas is currently embroiled in a legal battle with publicist Max Markson regarding alleged unpaid debts; there’s also allegedly been some fisticuffs. See also : Here’s How Breitbart And Milo Smuggled White Nationalism Into The Mainstream, Joseph Bernstein, BuzzFeed, October 5, 2017 (A cache of documents obtained by BuzzFeed News reveals the truth about Steve Bannon’s alt-right “killing machine.”).

• Gorman makes reference (pp.199-200) to a category of trolling known as ‘media fuckery’, and cites US academic Whitney Phillips who defines it as ‘the ability to turn the media against itself … by either amplifying or outright inventing a news item too sensational for media outlets to pass up’. This brought to mind two things. First, a recent example of ‘media fuckery’ in which a fake Facebook page titled ‘Melbourne Antifa’ applauded the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. This later featured in an article in The Daily Mail by Stephen Johnson (‘Melbourne Antifa extremists praise Las Vegas shooter’, October 2, 2017), was fact-checked by FactCheck.Org and Snopes and in May 2018 also triggered a bizarre interaction between myself and a right-wing blogger in the US. Secondly, the phrase immediately brought to mind similar terms such as ‘culture-jamming’ and ‘subvertising’, political practices which pre-date both ‘media fuckery’ and teh intarwebs as a whole. See : How To Make Trouble And Influence People.

• Gorman also makes reference (p.47) to local neo-Nazi activist Blair Cottrell in the context of a discussion regarding ‘hate leaching into the mainstream’ and Cottrell’s appearance as a very special guest on Adam Giles’ show on Sky News in August last year. As noted elsewhere, Cottrell – following an appearance on Sky News – told his 25,000 Twitter followers he might as well have raped presenter Laura Jayes on air because “not only would she have been happier with that but the reaction would’ve been the same”. In which context, a few things: first, while Facebook has banned the UPF and Cottrell, such commentary is considered acceptable by Twitter (to which platform Cotrell shifted after being kicked off Facebook). Secondly, his kamerad Neil Erikson made a similar remark directed at another female journalist, Jodi Lee, in November last year: ‘Jodie [sic] Lee acted like I had raped her on live TV….. She wishes!’ Thirdly, Cottrell has an extensive criminal record, mostly revolving around his stalking of an ex-girlfriend. Finally, Cotrell, Erikson and fellow white nationalist Chris Shortis were convicted in September 2017 of inciting hatred for Muslims; Cottrell is appealing the conviction on the grounds that the Victorian Act under which he was convicted (The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001) is in fact un-Constitutional, and will be appearing in the County Court in Victoria on February 19.

• While Gorman devotes relatively little space to d0xing, it’s relevant in several instances. In her chapter on weev, ‘A Professional Racist’, for example, Gorman notes (p.232) that weev appeared on a neo-Nazi podcast with Mike Enoch and Christopher ‘Crying Nazi’ Cantwell. Later in the chapter (p.236), Gorman also refers to ‘Azzmador’, who along with Daily Stormer publisher Andrew Anglin wrote a post for the site encouraging their fellow neo-Nazis to attend the murderous ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville in August 2017. As it happens, Mike Enoch is in fact Mike Peinovich, who got d0xxed in January 2017, while ‘Azzmador’ is Robert Warren Ray. (According to a November 2018 report, Ray is currently a fugitive after being charged with a felony allegedly committed at the rally.) As for Cantwell, late last year he voiced an audio version of local neo-Nazi Ryan Fletcher’s tract ‘From HEMP to Hitler’, which has been promoted on David Hiscox’s AltRight website XYZ. See also : The far right, the “White Replacement” myth and the “Race War” brewing, Julie Nathan, ABC (Religion & Ethics), February 12, 2019:

The potential for violence which such online posts portend was graphically demonstrated in the United States in October 2018 by Robert Bowers, who wrote on Gab, a Twitter-like platform which is a haven for extremists and racists, “Screw your optics, I’m going in.” Shortly afterwards, he entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and murdered eleven Jews. Afterwards, Bowers told police that he was motivated by his belief that “the Jews” were “committing genocide to my people.”

Chillingly, these words were echoed by another Gab user, an Australian named Ryan Fletcher, who wrote, “I think its [sic] about time to say ‘f*** your optics I’m going in’.” Fletcher has a dark history of calling for the murder of Jews in Australia and worldwide, and of posting images of Jews being killed, on his Gab account. Fletcher subscribes to the myth: “#White gentiles are waking up to the agenda of #ZOG (which is #WhiteGenocide).” “ZOG” stands for “Zionist Occupied Government,” a term used to insinuate that “the Jews” control the United States and other Western governments. Fletcher also writes articles for XYZ.

• Speaking of neo-Nazis, Gorman notes that inre her own experience of being trolled in 2013 (pp.10–11), Six days after Newton was sentenced in 2013 came the second frightening moment. Don found a photo of our family on the fascist social network Iron March. The now-defunct website carried the slogan ‘Gas the kikes’ on its homepage. Iron March was of course the birthplace of Australian neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Antipodean Resistance’. Its British cousins, National Action, have been proscribed as a terrorist organisation (see : See Graham Macklin, ”Only Bullets will Stop Us!’: The banning of National Action’, Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol.12, No.6 (2018) [PDF]). See also : Extreme neo-Nazi ‘death cults’ drawing in children as young as 13, report warns, Lizzie Dearden, The Independent, February 17, 2019 (‘Exclusive: Children as young as 13 being drawn into ideologies ‘harder, darker and more committed than ever before’’).

I may add some more thoughts at a later date, but in the meantime I think it worthwhile highlighting the fact that the rehabilitation of anti-Semitism and its increasing centrality to extreme-right perspectives in the United States is echoed Down Under as an increasingly larger segment of younger right-wing activists not only adopt a fascist outlook but place anti-Semitic conspiracy theories at the heart of their worldview. By way of example, the AltRight media platforms ‘XYZ’ and ‘The Unshackled’ (AKA ‘The Unhinged’ — which, to its credit, has been authorised by Google as a trusted media source) have drifted over the course of the last year or two from fairly conventional arch-Toryism to an open embrace of white nationalism. Leaving aside David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’), fellow XYZ contributor Ryan Fletcher has accounted for this shift in an essay titled ‘Trading HEMP for Hitler’ (a text which comes highly recommended by editor David Hiscox). Fletcher is also a YUGE fan of James Mason’s Siege — required reading for members of local neo-Nazi grouplet Antipodean Resistance.

Above : Tim Wilms of The Unhinged wearing his Proud Boys ‘Pinochet Did Nothing Wrong’ shirt. Note that the arm reads RWDS (‘Right Wing Death Squad’). Under the Pinochet dictatorship (1973–1990), tens of thousands of Chileans were raped, tortured, murdered and forced into exile by his death squads. (Coincidentally, this weekend, LASNET has organised a gathering on Autonomy & Resistance at Trades Hall in Melbourne.)

Queensland businessman Dan Spiller (AKA ‘Future Now Australia’ AKA ‘AE Events’) has recently announced the cancellation of the upcoming tour by Infowars-supplements salesman and paedophile apologist Milo Yiannopoulos (accompanied by fellow wealthy blabbermouth Ann Coulter). This is the second time Spiller has tried and failed to organise a tour by ‘foreign radicals’: back in April, Spiller announced that he’d be bringing both Yiannopoulos and ‘Proud Boys’ founder Gavin McInnes to Australia. That effort collapsed in a heap within a few days, but Spiller’s latest production took several months to fall apart … which I suppose could be considered either an improvement or a degeneration (depending on your perspective). In any (non-)event, the decision to cancel the tour has been compounded by Spiller’s decision not to refund buyers but instead offer them tickets to go and see two other ‘foreign radicals’ — Gavin McInnes and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon — when they tour in December.

Fingers crossed, Mr Spiller’s seemingly chronic inability to successfully profit from foreign hate-merchants will not deter him from attempting to do so and being similarly adept in future. The silver lining on this grey cloud of failure, however, is perhaps the new book by Milo, which is apparently All About Australia:

Above : An extract from Yiannopoulos’s upcoming book on Australia. It’s unclear at this stage if Janet Albrechtsen has accepted an invitation to write the foreword.

Of course, the possibility of either McInnes or Yaxley-Lennon being able to enter the country is entirely dependent upon Mr Potato Head’s feels on the subject. On Robinson, and in particular his current legal troubles (which may also see him prevented from coming), see : David Renton and Barrister Blogger.

With regards McInnes, he and his ‘Boys’ have been getting into some bother of late. Just a few weeks ago (Friday, October 12) in New York, McInnes was invited by the Metropolitan Republican Club to celebrate the anniversary of the assassination of Japanese socialist Inejiro Asanuma on this date in 1960. Following the event, some of McInnes’s fanboys went on a bit of a rampage, and some got arrest. An awful lot of ink has been spilled on the subject of the event and its aftermath, but as ever New York City Antifa (Twitter) is an xclnt resource. See also : The Proud Boys, The GOP And ‘The Fascist Creep’, Christopher Mathias, Huffington Post, October 18, 2018 (‘Gavin McInnes spoke at a GOP club, then his followers violently attacked leftist protesters. Modern American fascism finds its foot soldiers’) | NYPD arrests 14 Jewish protesters outside Republican club where Proud Boys brawled, Rex Santus, Vice, October 31, 2018 (‘The protesters outside the Club on Tuesday were there to call on the Republican Party to denounce white nationalism after the Saturday shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 worshippers were murdered by a man who’d shared anti-Semitic and white supremacist comments online.’).

Closer to home, Melbourne lawyer Nyadol Nyuon has launched an online petition, calling on the Minister to deny McInnes a visa. For their part, both Facebook and Instagram appear to have removed a large number of (official and unofficial) Proud Boy accounts from their sites. ‘The crackdown came slightly more than two weeks after members of the group reportedly attacked and beat activists protesting at an event in Manhattan. It also follows the massacre of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue — the worst anti-Semitic attack in recent US history.’ The gab.ai webshite (AKA ‘Twitter for nazis’) is also experiencing technical difficulties at the moment …

On Monday the story — the origins of which may be traced back to some reportage in The Australian back in May, but which was given flesh by Alex Mann for the ABC — provoked the following front-page treatment in The Daily Telegraph:

Oddly enough Sharri’s father, Max Markson, has been doing his bit to promote racism and fascism in Australia by way of Penthouse and in his capacity as Milo’s Australian publicist. Sadly, the relationship between Costas and Markson has broken down in the wake of the paedophile apologist’s December 2017 tour: ‘ … Mr Markson called Mr Costas a “lying conman”. Mr Costas, the publisher of Penthouse Australia and owning a company alongside one of Australia’s biggest drug dealers, convicted ice importer Sean Dolman, retaliated by calling Mr Markson “a very naughty boy” who “had his finger in the till”‘ (Private Sydney: Markson sparks up in court in dispute with Penthouse publisher, Andrew Hornery, The Sydney Morning Herald, September 6, 2018).

As noted a year ago, the neo-Nazi grouplet ‘The Lads Society’ has a clubhouse in the Melbourne suburb of Cheltenham. The nazis also have a training facility in Sydney, which is located at 34 Thomas Street, Ashfield. The Lads certainly have a sense of humour, with the lease on the property being signed with Colemon Property Group on Hitler’s birthday (April 20).

The chief organiser of ‘The Lads’ in Sydney is a Kiwi called ‘Mark McDonald’. Previously, Mark was the lvl boss of another short-lived neo-Nazi grouplet called ‘Squadron 88’. It attracted some media attention by way of stuffing letterboxes in Jewish areas of Sydney with anti-Semitic tracts. McDonald is also widely-believed to be responsible for the distribution of some racist posters in Sydney in mid-2017. Most recently, McDonald and several other Lads attended Adelaide barrister John Bolton’s batshit rally in Wiley Park:

Above : Partially-obscured, joining Cottrell on the right is Adelaide barrister John Bolton; standing between Cottrell and Tuckfield is Mark McDonald, founder of defunct neo-Nazi grouplet Squadron 88 and current lvl boss of The Lads Society in Sydney.

Finally, ladsleaks has published an interesting discussion drawn from The Lads’ private Facebook page. The list of participants in the discussion reads like a Who’s Who of neo-Nazism Down Under, including both founders Blair Cottrell and Tom Sewell, Mark McDonald (‘Tyler Winchester’) and Stuart Von Moger, David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’), Jim Perren (Australia First Party/’Whitelaw Towers’/United Patriots Front), Welf Herfurth and more. Much of the discussion revolves around The Lads’ shared hatred for Jewish neo-Nazi Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes. Based in Sydney, Sykes was until a few years ago a prolific contributor to the world’s leading neo-Nazi webshite ‘The Daily Stormer’. A member of the Australia First Party, Sykes uses his blog ‘United Nationalists of Australia’ to take aim at the party’s rivals on the right — including, of course, The Lads.

The post which triggered Tom can be read here — I’ll post other commentary from ladsleaks here laters.

XYZ dot net dot au (‘The XYZ’) is one of a small number of Australian ‘AltRight’ blogs/websites/podcasts that have sprung up in the last few years … but admittedly not one that I’ve paid much attention to.*

Collectively, these sites have dedicated themselves to battling ‘Cultural Marxism’, which in the case of ‘The XYZ’ finds its chief expression in ‘The ABC’. Of course, along with ‘The ABC’, ‘The XYZ’ regularly denounces The ALP, The Feminists, The Greens, The Leftists, The Muslims, The Queers, The Unions, ‘multiculturalism’, ‘political correctness’ and sundry other un-Australian forces. As such, it’s not unlike one of Uncle Rupert’s tabloids, and its ideological obsessions are typical of the Tory yoof who appear to be its chief market. Recently, however, the blog (‘online newspaper’) has been becoming increasingly batshit, seemingly under the influence of the US Alt-Right and following the triumph of God Emperor Trump.

Above : David Hiscox. ‘When I am not worrying about the fate of Western civilisation, I play the piano’ (‘Felix Mendelssohn and Germany’s proud Christmas heritage’, December 20, 2016).

‘The XYZ’ is the bRaneschild of David Hiscox, a local musician and music teacher. As editor, David is the most frequent contributor to the site, publishing around a third of its output, followed by Ryan Fletcher. (David Hilton, previously known as ‘Moses Apostaticus’, is another contributor.) Whether or not Ryan has pulled one too many cones, or perhaps simply received one too many knocks to the head, over the course of the last year or so he’s become increasingly open in his espousal of anti-Semitism and White nationalism. Further, the content on the site more generally has increasingly adopted more frank expressions of commitment to the AltRight than was present when David first began publishing it.

Previously content to describe itself as a ‘classical liberal’ platform committed to celebrating ‘free speech’, ‘free markets’ and ‘Western Civilisation’, the site has recently extended its mission to the defence of ‘cultural libertarianism’ from ‘cultural authoritarians’: ‘We also stand in opposition to cultural Marxism, which seeks to bring about socialism by attacking political, cultural, social, and religious norms and institutions – dismantling our national identity and the foundations of Western civilisation’. Shortly after launching its crusade in mid-2015, ‘The XYZ’ had also joined the fight against Islam which, like Cultural Marxism, allegedly poses an ‘existential threat’ to ‘Western Civilisation’.

In summary, David and ‘The XYZ’ have adopted wholesale the talking-points of the US AltRight and recent postings suggest that they’re finally beginning to (more openly) address ‘The JQ’. This is particularly in evidence in Ryan Fletcher and David Hilton’s contributions to the site but is also reflected in the commentary, which is increasingly beginning to resemble threads on ‘The Daily Stormer’. Below is just a few examples of the hundreds of barking-mad, anti-Semitic, and increasingly violent commentary by Mr Fletcher and others (the last being a reference to the murder of Heather Heyer and serious injury to others by a neo-Nazi in Charlottesville last year):

Still, in fairness to David, the laissez-faire comments policy which allowed for racist and anti-Semitic creeps to infest the site has recently been ended. Not because of the grotesque racism and misogyny, of course, but because two keyboard warriors were sniping at one another: ‘The line for me came when I saw two contributors engaged in what had degenerated from rugged debate into open civil war’ (‘A few comments on comments’, February 4, 2018).